Peter Granger talks about Cisco’s Manufacturing Active Collaboration Solution and how it can help with innovation and product development. GE calls their version Virtual Collaboration Space.

As you can hear in my video, the truth of the matter is that Collaboration and Innovation go hand-in-hand simply because when people get together they feed off one another, adding to each others ideas and seeing opportunities from different angles. They solve each others issues and talk through problems using words, images and video. When you click ‘read more’ you’ll hear more about GE’s use of MACS in a short video featuring senior GE and Cisco figures. I’ll also solve the riddle I set for you in an earlier blog about how to make a new square out of four matches!

Sure, we’d all like to meet face-to-face in person. And MACS is the closest thing to doing that, without the hassle of getting folks together from around the world with all those scheduling conflicts and travel delays that that entails. As I said in my previous blog (Innovation – Thinking Outside of the Box (or Should that be ‘Square’?) ideas can come from anywhere inside or outside of the organization. General Electric has recognized that a team’s effectiveness in working together worldwide to share and develop ideas is critical to a market leadership position. GE has said that use of Cisco Active Collaboration Rooms significantly reduces product development times, and allows global collaboration. Watch the video to find out more from Vic Bhagat, GE Corporate CIO (pictured), Greg Simpson, GE CTO, and others talking about GE’s innovative use of MACS. GE calls their version Virtual Collaboration Space.

Remember you have to move only one match to make a new square. An eight year old might struggle because they’d look at the cross of matches with the square in the middle and see if they could make a geometric shape. But the answer can come from a different but related discipline – in this case leave geometry behind and use algebra. Then your brain can think about it in a different way: make a figure ‘4’ as in the picture. Why four? Well that’s the ‘square’ of 2 isn’t it? So four’s a square! Different disciplines can bring different ideas to the table. And that’s what MACS is all about – bringing people together to innovate more effectively and more quickly.

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